The glossy production and soaring choruses make it as resolutely user-friendly as her previous albums. [Sep 2012, p.81]

Intrepid, but rarely satisfying. [Sep 2012, p.81]

Arguable Little Feat's best since Lowell George checked out. [Sep 2012, p.80]

[An] elaborate, sophisticated collection. [Sep 2012, p.79]

Hot Panda have produced a terrific album, one which combines intellectual and lyrical heft with a sure ear for a catchy riff. [Sep 2012, p.79]

The best tracks put a unique stamp on these improbable hybrids. [Sep 2012, p.75]

Exercises proves Silver is in good shape. [Sep 2012, p.74]

The uncluttered folk-rock arrangements and a voice that has acquired a richer Patina since her '90s country hits contribute to the loveliest and most profound album of her career. [Sep 2012, p.74]

Mutt offers a terrific spread of styles. [Sep 2012, p.73]

The riffs are polite, the vocals maddeningly limo, and more than half the tracks are mere sketches they couldn't be bothered to colour in. [Sep 2012, p.73]

Intermezzo is one of Sir Richard Bishop's most welcoming collections. [Aug 2012, p.79]

It's gritty and urgent, but the powerful lead vocals are melodic and traditional, and the lyrics eloquent. [Aug 2012, p.75]

Beneath the jazz-folk toned melancholia there's a new dramatic intensity. [Jun 2012, p.83]

It's a consistent Crowell effort, if a bit by-the-numbers. [Jul 2012, p.70]

An LP that reaffirms your faith in hip-hop. [Aug 2012, p.75]

A Hal Wilner-produced collection that is witty and engaging and confirms her as one of the most singular, if erratic, R&B divas of our time. [Aug 2012, p.71]

A glorious ruckus. [Aug 2012, p.69]

Valentine is typically sturdy--piquant observation and low-key philosophy played against an impeccable musical backdrop. [Aug 2012, p.80]

While there are still some occasional bright spots, it never quite regains its earlier momentum. [Aug 2012, p.69]

Mostly, this is spry, melodic, and totally charming. [Aug 2012, p.79]

You don't get bands like Blur very often. They deserve great boxsets, and this feels like one. [Aug 2012, p.85]

Doseone's keen ear for a pop melody and hip-hop's punch keep him on course. [Aug 2012, p.71]

One's enjoyment of this record will largely depend on the ability to endure a man doing an uncanny impersonation of a youthful Bob Dylan. [Aug 2012, p.80]

Their ragtag religious signifiers, stretching from the Mediterranean to Bengal, feel like gap year blog entries, and Cisneros' wizened sage delivery is ludicrous. [Aug 2012, p.77]

Luckily they are one of the few bands with stadium heft and the tunes to pull it off, rendering their big-heartedness euphorically justified. [Aug 2012, p.78]

The producer's penchant for tinsel and bluster tends to obscure the duo's strengths. [Jun 2012, p.80]

Her acoustic leanings have been ditched in favour of a moody, downtempo sound, full of eerie loops and elctro-bleeping. [Jul 2012, p.80]

This delightful album rolls back the last 60 years. [Aug 2012, p.78]

Wilful, perhaps, but also a hugely inventive joy. [Aug 2012, p.77]

Shrines sees this young Canadian duo tamper with generic electro to create often sparkling results. [Aug 2012, p.78]

A mini-masterpiece. [Jun 2012, p.82]

It's a fascinating charting of a band's gradual evolution through experiment. [Aug 2012, p.93]

The follow-up [to 2009's Warm Heart Of Africa] is similarly energetic and eclectic. [Aug 2012, p.83]

The singer runs out of steam in the second half, opting for a succession of cloying ballads that, despite her beguiling voice, leaves the listener unmoved. [Aug 2012, p.75]

Brawny, anthemic hard-rock chug remains their backbone. [Aug 2012, p.69]

With all the percolating energy the album delivers, its three most memorable songs are ballads.

Everything here is much as you'd expect. [Jul 2012, p.85]

For all the fine furies collected on Handwritten, the most memorable moments are those on which The Gaslight Anthem shift to lower gears. [Aug 2012, p.66]

The songs on 151a are most notable for their beautiful bursts of melody and soaring tunefulness. [Jun 2012, p.158]

[The songs] shows, ultimately, the heights to which Jaffe can rise with time. [Jun 2012, p.158]

Confess is largely an impeccable sequel to an immaculate debut. [Aug 2012, p.82]

Bjork and Joanna Newsom are unavoidable reference pints for her hiccuping poetic whimsy. [Aug 2012, p.79]

Valley Tangents takes long, deep breaths, fuzz guitar scrawling over meandering piano in a humidified room. [Jul 2012, p.69]

A nifty wordsmith whose drawled delivery complements the menace of his woozy productions. [Aug 2012, p.80]

An affectionate collection of Walker's songs. [Aug 2012, p.80]

A brilliant album. [Aug 2012, p.80]

A connoisseur-curated selection that manages to combine inspired innovation with wit, rich melodies and irresistibly squelchy basslines. [Aug 2012, p.96]

It's the gravitational pull of Williams' great jowly voice that remains the defining feature of an often vitriolic set of songs that veer between snake-hipped R'n'B and blasted soul'n'roll.

For the first time, Longstreth's words offer real value rather than verbose decoration. [Aug 2012, p.81]

A head-first plunge into the psych-punk muck. [Aug 2012, p.76]

The melodies drift rather aimlessly but the wonderfully groggy textures will stay with you like the best kind of sonic Valium. [Aug 2012, p.75]

Heavy Blanket should weed out the part-timers. [Aug 2012, p.73]

Lyrically the tone is disappointingly mawkish. [Aug 2012, p.73]

There's little discordance but much invention and beauty. [Aug 2012, p.73]

Sometimes, it's hard to remember who's influencing who. [Aug 2012, p.70]

Unsound is a corker, sounding fresh and full of great hooks and ideas. [Aug 2012, p.77]

This female-fronted quintet continues to connect the tuneful aggression of Blondie with the SoCal sassiness of Rilo Kiley. [Aug 2012, p.71]

It's Apple's refinement as a writer that makes this harrowing psychodrama so gripping. [Aug 2012, p.69]

The highlights of their third album appear to have been forged rather than recorded. [Aug 2012, p.69]

Among The leaves is entirely consistent with the rest of Kozelek's fine catalogue. [Aug 2012, p.63]

[A] striking debut. [Jul 2012, p.84]

Smith's heartfelt songs take on a more melancholic hue. [Jul 2012, p.70]

The Tarnished Gold, mature, with a revelatory appreciation for the simple life, might prove to be the true spiritual heir to their auspicious 2000 debut. [Jul 2012, p.81]

Copper Blue combined Hüsker Dü's passionate intensity with a new, steely pop resolve.

The album is filled with fascinating earworms. [Jun 2012,m p.69]

Her despondency is balanced with levity elsewhere. [Jul 2012, p.74]

It doesn't always Gel. But a horn heavy take on the Stooges' "Dirt" is satisfyingly ballsy. [Jul 2012, p.70]

It's all very becalming, but not quite the nu-psychedelic staging post that we were hoping for. [Jul 2012, p.79]

This more captivating follow-up, mixing originals and inspired covers, fuses sultry blues and deep jazz with Trucks' training in Indian classical music to create an alchemical hybrid. [Jul 2012, p.84]

It's an intriguing juxtaposition of the crunchy and the smooth. [May 2012, p.75]

Falling Off The Sky is the rare comeback effort worthy of its legacy. [Jun 2012, p.82]

Perfectly pleasant, but a little bloodless. [Jun 2012, p.80]

Reeling Skullways is a paean to the previous step on techno's evolutionary ladder: the analogue acid sounds of Detroit, Chicago, and Manchester. [Jul 2012, p.69]

Best blues album of the year so far. [Jul 2012, p.69]

The results are charming, melancholy and achingly beautiful. [Jul 2012, p.84]

He may come to rue the day he traded his trusty ukulele for a cheapo drum machine that makes his attempts at pop-funk sound more gauche than his nifty songcraft deserves. [Jul 2012, p.77]

Another 21 songs of baffling titles, ingenuous melodies and charming amateurism. [Jul 2012, p.73]

Gelb's masterstroke is the inclusion of Brian Lopez, Gabriel Sullivan and Jon Villa, whose flourishes of Tex-Mex and cumbia accentuate Tuscon's feel of pan-cultural enchantment. [Jul 2012, p.70]

The occasional sense of a well-won formula being diligently followed is counter-balanced by the committed performances and a sufficiency of hooks. [Jul 2012, p.77]

The best electro-pop debut since La Roux. [Jun 2012, p.80]

There's ample sustenance for the heart as well as the head. [Jul 2012, p.68]

With this one weighted heavily toward the dance floor, there's no shortage of sublime moments. [Jul 2012, p.74]

The results are startling, setting Womacks's distinctive voice against stark electro backings and thunderous beats. [Jul 2012, p.75]

Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson has upped his skill factors on this. [Jul 3012, p.84]

Seldom has retro sounded so pleasingly stubborn. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Its initial oddness now just sounds like a ramshackle tryout for what was to follow. [Jun 2012, p.91]

Producer Thomas Bartlett enlists the likes of Rob Moose and Brett Devendorf to add sharp edges to the Australian's singer's dreaminess. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Miller can't help occasional returns to his powerpop protocol. [Jul 2012, p.77]

The real standouts are "Daddy's Little Girl," in which M Ward puts her inside the head of Frank Sinatra, and the Jack Pendarvis-Andrew Bird collaboration "We Can't Have Have Things."

Burton's glassy lead lines and Corea's jerky modalism lend an unusual air to classics by Tadd Dameron. [Jul 2012, p.70]

It seems pretty much like business as usual. [Jul 2012, p.63]

Infectious stuff, and 30 years on from the first Pastels single, there is still no escaping indie's fey power. [Jul 2012, p.67]

The Absence isn't just an experiment in various styles. The songs are terrific. too. [Jul 2012, p.73]

Album number five is the sound of the law of diminishing returns finally kicking in. [Jul 2012, p.73]

At her best, and across much of Banga, Patti Smith still dramatises the distance between South Jersey and the San Francisco basilica, the street tussle between the poet and the factory girl, the devotion of the mongrels of faith for the betrayers of salvation. [Jul 2012, p.78]

Not quite criminal, but close. [Jul 2012, p.84]

The follow-up, recorded in a fully equipped studio with backing band, retains an acoustic ethic, but is more richly textured. [Jul 2012, p.84]

[Trust] hit upon a nifty formula that veers between mid-80s Depeche Mode and fruity Eurodisco. [Jul 2012, p.84]